Wartime Violence in early Films

What is it about?

This article deals with the cinematic representations of warfare violence and with its aestheticization in early films. It argues, in particular, that the patterns and narrative structures of (anti-)war movies were laid out during the First World War. Among the first films establishing those patterns and rules were D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, a film on the American Civil War, and Hearts of the World, showing the war on the western front, produced in 1918. Films such as these offered the main elements that would mark, henceforth, how anti-war movies would portray violence. With the up-coming of sound, moviegoers would be able not only to see, but also to hear what a war sounded like. Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), one of the first sound films, exposed the audiences to a series of (calculated) audio/visual distortions, including explosions, screams, and the monotone sound of machinegun fire.

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Why is it important?

By examining wartime violence in films, this article follows one of the latest trends in history science like Visual History, but also using films as historical sources. Concentrating on early films, this article discusses how wartime violence had been presented in those films, which laid the frame for all the other movies dealing with wartime violence to come, up to our days.